The Think Wildlife Podcast
Episode 77: Conserving Tasmania’s Biodiversity with James Hattam, CEO at Tasmanian Land Conservancy
Welcome to this episode of the think why my podcast Today I interview James Hatem who is the CEO of the Tasmanian land conservancy TLC is working extensively to conserve rare ecosystems in Tasmania, Australia by working with landowners and Aboriginal communities to preserve the rare ecosystems in the landscape. Do you need to listen more and don't forget to share and subscribe. Welcome James, the podcast is a pleasure to have you on. Before we start talking about the Tasmanian land conservancy, let's talk about Tasmanian's wildlife. What are the major threats to wildlife in Tasmania? You know we're really blessed in Tasmania that we have a really intact diversity of wildlife and most of that is due to the fact that we have large intact areas of habitat across the state but we also have a lack of predators when I think we think of European foxes as the main predatory species that has wiped out populations on the mainland Australia as an island. We're very lucky that we don't have European foxes so that's probably the biggest threat in terms of if they were to take a stronghold in Tasmania but also a threat to habitat loss and habitat degradation and we're seeing more and more development in Tasmania and more and more of that impact between humans and wildlife. So yeah, I'd say those two things are the biggest threats to wildlife. Two species which are very well known from Tasmania is the Tasmanian Devil and extinct Tasmanian Tiger. However Tasmanian Devil is faring in a while and could you just give us some history about the Tasmanian Tiger? Yeah sure. Last week in Australia was the national threatened species day on it must have been the 7th of September and that marks the day that in 1936 I think it was that the last thylosine died in Hobart in the zoo called bromorus and that was the last known alive thylosine that tipped over into extinction and so every year we remember the loss of that species and the important role that we all have to play to ensure that we don't lose more species. So the thylosine was a really unique dog-like species, marsupial species, really robust, strong dominant predator and it was hunted by Europeans when they came to Tasmania and it was seen as a big threat to livestock across Tasmania and there was bounties put on it so it was basically hunted to extinction. There was some impacts around loss of habitat but the biggest issue was that there were concerted efforts to hunt the species to extinction so that it didn't no longer caused an impact on livestock particularly sheep. The other one around Tasmanian devils that Tasmanian devil were closest related to the thylosine and they're incredibly unique obviously only occur in Tasmania and about it must have been 20 years ago 25 years ago there was a rise in devil facial tumour disease which is contagious cancer and from what I understand there's only two of them in the whole world and that was recorded in northeast Tasmania and that's decimated the population across Tasmania so in some areas we've seen populations decrease by 90% but through a really concerted effort by conservation groups governments but also researchers we have a much better understanding of the impact on that species and we're starting to see that species kick back in particular places and often we now see waves of disease go through the landscape so you'll see that the disease go through and it'll wipe out most of the animals and then you'll obviously have more resources in the landscape and the species will come back and then they live for a much shorter period now because as they get older the cancer because they fight with each other quite a lot and that's how the cancer is spread through those interactions so yeah we still record Tasmanian devils across our reserve stage and a lot of the the private lands that we work on in some places they're really healthy in other places where scenes of disease come through but it's good to know that you know hopefully the species won't go extinct because of that disease but who knows in climate change these has these things and threats and on top of each other we'll start to see a probably a greater impact across the landscape. What was the idea behind the Tasmanian land conservancy? Yeah so we were started in 2001 and we were started because there was a real need or a real opportunity for us to purchase land in Tasmania that is a high conservation value so in Tasmania about 40% of the state is already covered in national parks or other reserves but that's pretty much the western side of the state and there's a particular different types of habitats that just occur on the west of the state very mountainous wet remote isolated places but a lot of our threatened species especially wildlife are required the habitats that occur on the eastern side of the state so the Tasmanian land conservancy was established as an idea that people could donate money and we would pull that money and we would go and buy really important patches of private land and manage it for conservation. At the same time as doing that we would also work with landholders to help educate them about the important ecological values and wildlife that rely on the habitat on their land and we would support them in their conservation initiatives and give them the tools to be really good custodians and the stewards of their properties as well so yeah from 2001 when we started we now have 26 reserves we own and manage about 30,000 hectares in Tasmania we employ about 30 staff including ecologists and land managers that work around the state and yeah we've helped conserve over an additional 70,000 hectares of land by working with landholders so yeah hopefully we're playing a really critical role in conservation across the landscape because as you would know not all wildlife understands that it needs to live in national parks they move through the landscape and so we're trying to provide those connections to different areas and to provide a diversity of habitat across the landscape for our species. How exactly does your organization operate and what is the role of the Tasmanian Land Conservancy Foundation? So yeah we operate we're not-for-profit community-based science organisation so we're a registered charity in Australia so most of our funding comes through philanthropy and in 2009 we established the TLC Foundation. The TLC Foundation is a really pivotal component of the way that we fund the management of our reserves so this is all being generated through public donations and it sits at about 22 million dollars currently and we invest that ethically and then we live off the interest of the income that's generated so about 1.2, 1.4 million dollars a year is invested out of the TLC Foundation into our conservation work and so that funds the ecological monitoring on our reserves, funds our colleges to go out to to ensure that we're understanding the health of the populations of the wildlife that live there but also the condition of the habitats also supporting our land management team to be managing threats like weeds, illegal access and any restoration activities that we might be doing to enhance it. So yeah we operate using sort of business principles and we try to ensure that we can fund conservation in the long term because we know when we establish a reserve there's a lot of excitement about people donating money into property to manage it for conservation but we need to make sure that we can fund that into the future so yeah it's essentially like a crowdfunding model where people have given money over many many years and we're very lucky that 22 years since we were started we have a balance sheet value of about 70 million dollars now and most of that has come through people making donations. That's great so let's talk about some of the TLCs projects so could you talk a bit about the new leaf project? Yeah sure new leaf was a really fascinating project. This was when the TLC purchased a large forestry estate. There was a company in Tasmania called Guns which was a forestry company and they went bankrupt and TLC purchased their native forest estate which was about 27,000 hectares of land and we did that through a philanthropist called Jan Cameron and she purchased the land then transferred it to TLC under a mortgage and we had to come up with different novel ways to achieve conservation across these areas and these were large, vast forestry properties scattered all over the state in various different stages of regeneration so it took our land holding from 3,000 hectares to 30,000 hectares overnight and as an organisation it increased our scale and our scope and it was pretty revolutionary so what we did with that was that we had to come up with different ways to fund the conservation of those areas and to get some protection on the lands that we were working. So some areas we set aside as reserves and we run fundraising campaigns to pay off the mortgages of those places. Other areas we on sold so we put conservation agreements on the titles of the land that go in perpetuity so when the property sold the protection still stays there so we sold back to conservation minded people and another thing that we did was establish a carbon project over those areas so because those areas could have been logged or harvested in the future we developed a carbon methodology that said what if we put those areas into conservation not and didn't log them what would be the carbon benefit so we've been able to calculate the carbon sequestration across those forests and we trade that through the Australian carbon-credited scheme and that's been really important for us as a diversified business model to fund our conservation work so yeah that was way back in 2010-2011 so New Leaf was a really critical component for us to demonstrate that conservation could actually generate revenue and TLC would think of different ways to achieve conservation across a forestry state. Earlier I mentioned that you also work with private landowners so could you just elaborate on how you engage them in conservation? Yes sure, that's one of the great things that has been here because it's very much nature scattered all on the state you know I'm very blessed I live just on the square to Hobart and I have lots of birds I have the two species of bandicoot eastern bar bandicoot and the southern bar bandicoot to live in my front yard so nature is actually all around some people have really interesting interaction relationships and they do in wildlife so we use that as a critical tool to start building relationships with landholders so we operate a whole variety of different conservation programs from our land for wildlife program which is a voluntary scheme where landholders commit to manage their property for habitat conservation and we provide them a management plan and some information about how they could manage their property better for wildlife and often it's just giving them a little bit of information and showing them where the birds live, where the bandicoots might live, what's the key elements of the key habitat areas of their property and how they can better manage that and the other thing that we've put into that scheme is our wild tracker project so wild tracker is a citizen science project where landholders can put fauna cameras out on their properties to get a better sense of the species that are moving through the landscape but also the important species that live on their property so most of our wildlife in Australia are nocturnal so you don't really see them during the day when you're out and about so these cameras have been really revolutionary for us to give landholders the tools to better manage their properties for wildlife conservation and we also work with a host of farming communities around the state too because we appreciate that farms also have a large large areas of habitat on their property so we work closely with landholders to provide them different tools and different support mechanisms so that they can understand what they have and they can better manage those places in the future. So what is some research being conducted TLC? I know that you guys took quite a bit of research work. Yeah and science is a really fundamental component of the organisation so we have a really great science programme which does all of ecological monitoring on our reserves it also runs the wild tracker project with land holders but we also have a series of partnerships with universities across Australia and that's whether that's partners coming to do research on our land or us working jointly on partnership projects so the biggest one at the moment is a really exciting partnership between the Australian government the land conservancy, WWF Australia and the University of Tasmania where we've got a grant through the Australian Research Council to look at how we could potentially supplement populations of eastern koal which is a threatened species in Tasmania it's pretty much one extinct what has one extinct online land Australia and we're looking at how we can use our reserves and the lands around those reserves are sort of safe havens for those species so yeah we pride ourselves on doing really applied science so that the science they're supporting is helping us manage our reserves better and also helping the whole community understand the value of habitating the landscape and the role that we play in terms of looking after it and managing it so yeah science is a really core component for us in the conservation that we do so what is your long-term vision about DLC? So our vision is for Tasmania to be a global leader in nature conservation and we think we're really on a path for that so because what I said before we have that great base of about 40% of the state already in protected areas and the large area of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area we think we can really build on that and build a community of land holds scattered across the landscape whether you're a farmer, whether you're managing your area as a national park or whether you're a person that just finds a property or you're the land conservancy as we are on our land that you can have all these different people across the landscape managing for the same purpose so we think Tasmania has a great opportunity to demonstrate how you can collectively contribute to nature conservation and broaden the reach and understand him by harnessing that connection that we all have to the natural world. So what are some of the biggest challenges you have faced not only in your personal conservation career but also as an organization? Yeah the biggest challenge I think one thing that's made our organization so successful is its long-term vision and its continuing investment in applied science and management and relationships so I think the biggest issue is that funding comes and goes relationships come and go you know lots of these gains are made through time and it takes a decade to establish a relationship with someone it takes a long time to establish these projects and it's really important that you're continuing to go back and to manage it places like weed infestations or standard monitoring that we're making sure that we're consistently doing that and gathering the information so I think for me having that ability to be flexible and adaptable but maintaining a steady state that we're continuing to invest our efforts in those general principles around ecological monitoring land management of key threats and then also bringing people along on that journey and engaging with the wider communities. How can individuals contribute to DLC? Yeah but great thing another thing from our vision as an organization is that we can't do it alone and we try to do that and harness that through everyone's relationship that they have to nature and whether they're being to Tasmania or not everyone can play a part and you know understand the work that we do and support the work that we do through a whole range of different ways but encourage people to go on to our website tazlan.org.au follow us on all the social media channels and you'll see some of the incredible landscapes that we get to work in but yeah on the website you can sign up to receive our newsletter and communications and just spread the message. You don't really understand the power that you can have by sharing the work that other organizations do and you never know you know our organizations built on the connections in our community and the role that we've all played in sharing messages and you know we're about to launch a fundraising campaign to purchase the property in the central highlands of Tasmania which is an incredible property and we have to raise you know 6.2 billion dollars but every dollar that we raise will go to the protection of that play so whether you can donate a dollar whether you can read our newsletter and share our information on social media it all really helps to to to support the work that we do or whether you're a land holder and you want to sign up to land for wildlife or any of our other conservation programs yeah encourage you to go online and sign up. I'm a final question for you today is that what has been your biggest learning from your conservation career? My biggest learning is without relationships that you invest through time you'll never have really enduring conservation outcomes so finding a middle ground sitting down listening learning from people building and understanding have been open mind being curious applying those general principles and practices of conservation without being so rigid that you you don't take in other perspectives and other people's views because without people without relationships we are the problem but we're also the solution to protecting places that enrich our lives but also the places that so many species rely on for their survival so yeah my biggest lesson is relationships and listening and saying less sometimes. Thank you so much for your time it is a pleasure speaking to you today. And where is it all Anish? Thanks for the opportunity. [BLANK_AUDIO]